1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cleaning apparatus of a screen mask, and more particularly to a cleaning apparatus of a screen mask which is suitably employed in the case that a paste-like printing agent having a low viscosity is used in a screen printing machine.
2. Description of Conventional Art
In the screen printing machine, when printing, a part of a printing agent 102 such as a cream solder or the like tends to go around a lower surface of a screen mask 100 from a lower edge of a screen hole 101 of the screen mask and remain there, as shown in FIG. 6. Accordingly, it is necessary to stop the machine frequently to clean the screen mask.
Further, it is necessary to dismount the screen mask each time for this cleaning. Since cleaning is a manual process, too much man-power and time are required.
Further, on the other hand, if the printing agent is a paste-like printing agent having a low viscosity, it is possible to completely remove the printing agent only by lightly applying the printing agent to the screen mask and subsequently gently wiping the printing agent from the screen mask.
Further, as a result of various experiments, it has been found that it is desirable to use an adhesive tape as a material which serves a sufficient effect for wiping out only by lightly contacting the paste-like printing agent having the low viscosity and is preferable in the case of automatically cleaning by a machine.